The prior art is replete with apparatuses for vacuuming and pulverizing leaf, lawn and garden debris. Usually these devices relate to motor-driven shredders of relatively low flow rates. Recently, federal, state and local officials have seen the need to disperse landscaping including native materials--at relative high flow rates--onto hillsides adjoining roadways to prevent erosion. For example, the city of Berkeley, Calif. contracts to have wooden chips cast on its hillsides. Similarly, in order to reduce nutrient intake to Lake Tahoe in the western U.S., a program of spreading of forest duff including pine needles, is being planned. Experience has shown that there are no present apparatuses available that have the flexibility for multi-operations in the following circumstances: (i) to vacuum, comminuted and load debris at a surprisingly high but variable flow rate between hammermill or shredder (also called "comminuting chamber") and the dispersing fan in a shredding and capture mode wherein the debris is loaded onto the bed of in-line truck attached to the front of the apparatus of the invention that also causes movement of the latter, (ii) to spread native and/or landscaping materials either captured on-site, viz., at the dispersal site or trucked-in, to adjacent hillside locations from a single-lane of a roadway in which enhancement of the material and dispersal direct on are variable, (iii) to spread native or commercial landscaping materials carried on the bed of an in-line truck attached to the rear of the apparatus of the invention in-line with the system of the invention and providing locomotion to the latter, the flow of the native or commercial materials being either through the hammermill of the invention for enhancement purposes or directly to the inlet of the fan chamber with the additional capability of the fan to direct dispersal of the native or commercial landscape materials in a variety of directions say up to 50 feet directly from a dispersal nozzle attached to the fan outlet chute and to spread the latter material, say up to 500 feet using an auxiliary hose attached directly to such fan outlet chute.
In our prior patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,521, we set forth a system which the speeds of the hammermill and fan were directly related to the speed of an engine, shafts of the former being directly connected via sheaves and belts to the shaft of the engine. Increasing the speed of the engine, proportionally increases the speed of operations of the hammermill and fan in a constant proportion. We have now discovered that if the speeds of the hammermill and fan are independently variable with respect to each other and driven by separately controllable hydraulic motors connected to a hydraulic pump driven by the engine, flexible operations are provided in the following circumstances: (i) to vacuum, comminute and load debris at a surprisingly high but variable flow rate between hammermill or shredder and the dispersing fan in a shredding and capture mode wherein the debris is loaded onto the bed of in-line truck attached to the front of the apparatus of the invention that also causes movement of the latter, (ii) to blow native materials such as duff from forest floors, straw, pine needles, chipper chips (chucks of wood processed by chipper (bladed apparatus) captured on-site or trucked-in and enhanced by the hammermill, to adjacent hillside locations from a single-line of a roadway in which enhancement of the material and dispersal direction is variable, (iii) to blow native or commercial mulch carried on the bed of an in-line truck attached to the rear of the apparatus of the invention and providing locomotion to the latter, the flow of the native or commercial mulch being either through a chute into the hammermill for enhancement purposes or directly to the inlet of the fan with the additional capability of the fan to direct dispersal of the native or commercial mulch in variety of directions say up to 50 feet directly from a dispersal nozzle attached to the fan outlet chute and say up to 500 feet using an auxiliary hose attached directly to such outlet chute.